Some Facts About Pacific Islander American

I'll admit: I don't know much about Pacific Islander Americans. In addition, it was hard to find good information about Pacific Islander Americans, their history and contribution to the U.S. Perhaps I wasn't searching hard enough and would count this as my fault.

I did, however, find a fact sheet about Pacific Islander Americans by, surprisingly, the White House, more specifically, White House Initiative on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI). It doesn't specify when was it compiled so I'm unsure of its relevancy nor under what administration, but my hunch is that it should be recent enough to be relevant. The title of this fact sheet is called "Fact Sheet: What You Should Know About Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI's)." I wanted to post the entirety of the fact sheet, but copying and pasting has created a weird format that makes it difficult to edit. Typing it all out will take too much time for me. So, I opted to highlight important facts that everyone should know. With that, here are the facts about Pacific Islander Americans:

Indigenous Peoples:

• Native Hawaiians, Samoans and Chamoru are indigenous peoples to the State of Hawaii, the U.S. Territory of American Samoa and the U.S. Territory of Guam respectively.

• 8 out of 10 Pacific Islanders in the U.S. are native to the United States.

Demographics:

• Pacific Islanders include diverse populations who differ in language and culture. They are of Polynesian, Micronesian and Melanesian backgrounds.

• The Polynesian group is the largest and includes Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongans and Tahitians.

• The Micronesian group, which is the second largest, includes primarily Chamoru from Guam but also includes other Chamoru and Carolinian from the Mariana Islands, Marshallese, Palauans and various others which include but is not limited to Pohnpeian, Chuukese, Kosraen, and Yapese from the Federated States of Micronesia.

• Of the Melanesian group, which would include Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, Fijian-Americans are the largest in this group.

Migration:

• Including the State of Hawaii, 73% of the NHPI populations lived in the West, predominantly in the states of Hawaii and California. These two states had more than 500,000 Pacific Islanders combined. Washington was the only other State that had more than 15,000 Pacific Islanders.

Population:

• According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 874,000 reported Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders, which account for 0.3% of the entire U.S. population.

• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, as a group, experienced 2.4% growth between 2007 and 2008, third overall among race groups; Asians and Hispanics were second and first respectively.

Language:

• There are at least 39 different Pacific Island languages spoken as a second language in the American home.

Health:

• In California, Pacific Islander children have the highest rates among all children who are overweight or obese, putting these children at heightened risk for cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancers.

• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders generally experience poorer health than the American population as a whole: they are more at risk for developing and dying from cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases.

Poverty:

• Almost 20% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders live in poverty while over 16% lack health coverage.

• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders living below poverty: 18% (U.S. average living below poverty: 12%).

• Poverty rates are higher among Pacific Islanders who have a per capita income 27% below the national average.

Education:

• Only 29% of Pacific Islanders between the ages pf 18 and 24 are enrolled in a college or university, which is comparable to African Americans. In contrast, 39% of non-Hispanic whites and 57% of Asians in the age range are enrolled in college.

• Research has found that AAPI's with higher socio-economic status (SES) were three times more likely to begin college at a selective institution than those in lower SES, with Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders less likely than Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans to begin college at a selective institution.

• The importance of disaggregation of data within the AAPI community can be seen in bachelor degree attainment rates among ethnic sub-groups from a high of 69.1% for Asian Indians to a low of 9.4% for Samoans.

Housing:

• Pacific Islander renters experience consistent adverse treatment at the rate of 21.5 percent, which is about the same level for African American and Hispanic renters.

• Most Americans reside in an owner occupied home while most Micronesians rent. This difference is especially pronounced in Hawaii.

Apparently, I've typed more than half of what was on the fact sheet. Honestly, this was depressing to read and write. It just shows that the Pacific Islander American community needs to have more recognition and be supported. Nevertheless, I learned that there is extreme diversity within the community; it is always good to learn about different communities that you aren't totally familiar with. I wish I was able to provide more to this topic, because this fact sheet doesn't do justice for what this community is about.

If you want to read the whole fact sheet, you can click on this link below:

https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/list/asian-americans-initiative/what-you-should-know.pdf